


Purple and Red Will Form Our Thread

by butterflyslinky



Series: Life Will Begin with the Color on My Skin [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Aromantic, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Asexuality, F/M, Platonic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 17:45:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2781953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflyslinky/pseuds/butterflyslinky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When your soulmate gets a bruise, you get one in a different color. Clint knows his soulmate, and she's perfect, if he can figure out how he feels about her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purple and Red Will Form Our Thread

Clint had always had soul bruises, though never too many. They were few and far between, blood red and blaring. He never minded too much. He knew full well that it was going to be all right once he found her.

And find her he did. Clint was six years old when he first met Natasha. He was at the park, just playing, when he felt a sudden unrelated pain on his knee. He looked down to see a red bruise forming and he quickly looked around the find where it had come from.

There was a little girl lying on the pavement, obviously forcing herself not to cry. Clint went over to her immediately. “Hi,” he said. “Can I help you up?”

“No,” she snapped, getting up on her own. “Don’t need help.” She glared at him, green eyes looking defiant.

“Okay.” He smiled. “My name’s Clint.”

She pouted at him, and Clint noticed she had a lot of royal purple bruises on her. “You’re a klutz,” she snapped.

“Sorry.” Clint looked down. “I don’t mean to…”

She turned and started to walk off. Clint chased after. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Natasha,” she said shortly, before she found a woman with red hair like hers and demanded to go home.

*

He saw her again when he was eight, at the same playground. He knew it was her, even though he’d been extra careful so she didn’t have as many spots of purple on her.  
He was overjoyed to see her and immediately trotted up to her. “Hi, Natasha!” he said enthusiastically.

She looked at him severely, but then smiled. “Hi, Clint,” she said. “Glad you’re better now.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Wanna play with me?”

Natasha glanced at the woman who Clint presumed was her mother, who was reading a book and paying no attention. “Okay,” she said.

They played all afternoon. Clint climbed to the top of the monkey bars and walked across perfectly. Natasha climbed as well, all over the playset, getting places Clint couldn’t reach no matter how hard he tried. She was very fast and graceful, a little blur of red hair that darted around as they engaged in a game of tag. They didn’t talk much, because they couldn’t think of much to say, but they didn’t need to. Their movements spoke for them.

Natasha went home at evening and Clint hoped he’d see her again soon.

*

He didn’t see her again until he was thirteen and ran into her at the movie theater. She was there with a few girlfriends, and she nodded to him like he was a casual acquaintance. He didn’t know what to say, except that she was beautiful and he loved her. Not in the way that men were supposed to love women. He hardly knew her at all, and even though he knew she was beautiful, he didn’t just want to have sex with her like he did with other girls and boys. He just knew that he loved her, because she was the bits of red that still occasionally marked his skin.

He followed her group into the theater, feeling very fortunate that they had tickets to the same movie. He didn’t sit with her, exactly, merely took the seat behind her. He couldn’t remember anything about the movie afterward, being too busy watching her reactions. At one point, she turned and noticed him looking at her, but she merely rolled her eyes and ignored him.

After it was over, Clint followed her out, trying to keep a respectful distance while keeping her in sight. She was quiet and at first, Clint thought she had forgotten him, but then she told her friends she was going to the restroom and they should wait for her outside. Once they were gone, though, she didn’t go into the ladies’ room, but turned walked straight to him. “Would you stop following me?” she hissed.

“Sorry,” Clint said. “I just…haven’t seen you in a while.”

“So?” she snapped.

“So?” he repeated. “I mean…you…me…you know what the bruises mean.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

Clint was flabbergasted. “Well…I just thought…I mean…I figured it meant we’re supposed to be friends.”

“Is that all?” she asked, her face softening a bit.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean…I like you, Natasha. And I wish I could see you more often.”

“You don’t know me,” she said.

“Sure I do,” he said. “I know you at the most fundamental level someone can. But I’d like to know more.”

She sighed. “Fine.” She rummaged in her purse until she found a pen. She grabbed Clint’s hand and scribbled a phone number on it. “I move around a bit, but you should be able to reach me there.”

“Okay,” he said. “Do you want mine, too?”

She shook her head. “Just call me,” she said, and then she was gone.

*

Clint waited a whole week to call her.

“Took you long enough,” she said, though her voice was amused.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want you to think…”

“Sure.” She laughed. “So…”

“So,” Clint said.

There was an awkward pause, but then Natasha said, “Okay, Clint. Let’s start with the bruises. Why are you so clumsy?”

“Not clumsy,” Clint mumbled. “Just…I do a lot of risky stuff.”

“Well, you should stop,” Natasha said. “Cause I don’t like looking like I’m covered in grape juice.”

“Sorry.” Clint was quiet. “So how do you avoid making me look like a massacre?”

“I don’t do stupid things.” Natasha sighed. “So…Clint? Clint who?”

“Barton,” he said. “Natasha who?”

“Romanov.”

“Okay, Natasha Romanov,” Clint said. “Wanna get ice cream sometime?”

*

They saw each other more often through high school. They spoke on the phone at least once a week and saw each other every month or two. Clint’s friends saw them together sometimes and asked if Natasha was his girlfriend, to which he always answered no.

Because she wasn’t. Natasha was many things to him, but a girlfriend wasn’t any of them. Clint liked her a lot, loved her even, but the idea of being a couple always made him hesitate, and wasn’t that confusing, having a soulmate he wasn’t romantically attracted to. And as far as he knew, she felt the same way.

They were eighteen and heading to college. By pure coincidence, they had chosen the same school, though they were majoring in different subjects. Clint was glad for this. It meant he would be close to Natasha, but not spending twenty-four hours in her pocket.

Due to some careful arranging, they did manage to get in the same residence hall, Natasha on the floor below Clint. In spite of this, though, Clint didn’t see her too often. They ate dinner together, and went to the library together, but other than that, they didn’t really hang out. But that was all right, because Clint needed to be able to think about what their relationship was.

She was his best friend, that he knew. He loved her on some basic level, but not beyond that. He wanted to spend his whole life with her, but not too close to her. He understood her—why she was so careful, why there were so few red spots to mark him as hers, why she got so annoyed when she had to go places covered in purple—but he wasn’t sure how he really felt about her, or more importantly, how she felt about him.

It was almost Christmas. They were driving home together for the holiday to save on gas, and Clint couldn’t stand it anymore. As soon as they were on the highway, he turned to her. “Natasha?” he asked. “Do you love me?”

She side-eyed him from the driver’s seat. “Love is for children,” she said.

“Then maybe I’m a child,” Clint retorted. “Because I think I love you.”

She was silent for several minutes and Clint was afraid that she was going to kill him as soon as the car stopped, but then she sighed. “I don’t know what to call it,” she finally admitted. “I just know that I don’t want…I don’t want to get married and ride off into the sunset to have six kids with you. I don’t even want to have any sort of sex with you, let alone have a romantic relationship…”

He nodded. “I feel the same way,” he said. “Like…I love you, but I don’t want to be…with you. If that makes sense?”

“I think it does,” she said. “But…we’re soulmates, right? Doesn’t that mean we’re supposed to feel that way?”

“No,” he said firmly. “It just means that we match…not that it’s romantic or sexual or anything. And for me, it just means that you’re my best friend forever.”

She smiled. “I like that,” she said. “My very best friend. So…if you want to start dating…”

He shook his head. “Not really my thing. I just want to do my archery.”

“Same,” she said. “I just want to get good grades and have a good life. I don’t want that from anyone.”

“I know.”

They were quiet the rest of the way home, but they still understood.

*

They got married two years later. Not because they felt romantic, or sexual, but because the benefits of being married were too good to pass up. They both had dangerous and secret jobs, and they needed to be able to tell each other about them, and learn if anything bad happened to the other.

The red spots came more often, and Clint was content to have his best friend, to hug her when she came home and help patch her up.

And she was content to be with him, even if she still scowled at the purple spots when he came home. And that was all right.


End file.
